UI Automation Safety Tip

Here's a safety tip for everyone who works with UI automation record & playback tools. Turn off your email & IM programs before you start recording. Close down your Twitter, GMail and Yahoo-based items as well. This has nothing to do with system resources or anything like that. Rather, it's because there are a surprising number of people out there who will be recording a test, then respond to an IM or decide to jot off an email.

And when they do that, the recorder captures it and puts it into the script, where anyone else who has access to it can see. I had a co-worker once who used to IM his girlfriend during work hours. We sat down one afternoon to review a script he'd been working on, and right in the middle of it was his side of one of their conversations. There was nothing racy or controversial in there, but he was very embarrassed to say the least. It didn't occur to him that the tool was recording *every* action he performed.

So please, for your own sake, turn off those social media utils while you're doing record & playback. (Or at least remember to click the Stop Recording button before you use them.)